Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 3 Rules to “Fight Fair” With Someone You Love

Episode Date: November 2, 2016

It’s inevitable: Everyone argues with his or her partner from time to time. But we have to be careful; Often, the people we love the most are the ones we end up hurting the most with our words. In today’s episode of LOVE Life, I’m giving you my 3 rules to fight fair in an argument to protect your relationship from the irreversible damage caused by the top 3 miscommunication mistakes. (#1 might surprise you!)  

Matthew Hussey here with Love Life. Have you ever wondered whether you should date more than one guy at a time? Every dating expert seems to have a different opinion on this. But what do guys really think about a woman who keeps her options open? Well, I'll tell you how to get the answer at the end of the show. First, let's get into today's episode. Today, we are talking about the three things that you have to always remember when you're having an argument. The really sad and tragic part about arguments is it's the people that we actually care about the most that we end up hurting the most and doing damage to. And sometimes that damage lasts a very long time and is extremely

difficult to reverse. So I have a couple of tips here that I want to give you. And by the way, if you have a pen and paper, if you have a pen and paper anywhere in this show, write stuff down. I, there's as cliched and cheesy as it sounds, a dull pencil is a better, is better than a sharp mind. If you can write it down, you're going to remember this stuff. So the first one is diffuse the situation quickly. Now there's a kind of idea in arguments that sometimes you need to take time. Sometimes you need to take time away. You need to walk away and you need to go into a different room or you need to leave for a day or two and then come back and revisit the argument. Now I think in some cases that allows people to not vent in an extremely hypersensitive way. And for that reason can be the lesser of two evils.

I do, however, think that if it's at all possible for you to do so, diffuse it now. That should always be your motto. How do I diffuse this now instead of walking away? Diffusing it quickly, diffusing it now allows you to move past the situation. And let me give you an example of this. I think a very common thing that happens in couples is they're walking down the street and't speak up. So now they go the whole day being irritable because they remember that moment. And they say in their mind, they're going, I can't believe they did that in front of me. That was so offensive. I can't believe they're looking at other people. You feel jealous. You feel hurt, but you don't say anything.

That person senses that you're cold and says, why are you being cold? And of course, you and your prideful state say, I'm not being cold. There's nothing wrong. I'm not being cold. And they sense that you're cold anyway. So now they feel shut out from you. So what do they do? They get cold. They begin to shut down. So now you're both not enjoying your day because you're both shut down over this tiny little issue and you're not talking about it. You get to the end of the day and finally you're so angry about the situation, especially because you haven't voiced it. And you've thought of all these other arguments in your head that make it valid and now you voice the argument and you say, listen, let me tell

you what really annoyed me today. And you start talking about that thing. Now, here's where you make the second mistake. The second mistake is the urge to pile on. So instead of focusing on the one issue that's actually at hand, i.e. that person glanced at someone else for a second more than you were comfortable with, you now pile it on. So you say, and I remember, you know, and it's just like that time four weeks ago where you stood there talking to that person for 20 minutes, even though I was there with you. And I can't believe you did that, you know. And you have all these friends that you say are just friends, but they're really hitting on you. And so now you pile everything on because you want to legitimize your argument. But true credibility doesn't come from piling on all the evidence possible. True credibility comes from sticking with the original

thing that bothered you and exploring that rather than piling on everything you can. The third one is perhaps the most nasty of them all. And this is when in your angered, prideful state where you feel hurt and you feel like you're stubborn, you don't want to give in and you also feel pain. So now your instinct is to inflict pain. Now you go into cut mode and this gets really nasty. So here in the argument I've given in the example, here's what someone might do. And by the way, what you think that I couldn't do the exact same thing if I wanted to, you think I couldn't look at someone else. You think people aren't looking at me all the time. Just the other day, someone hit on me and you might tell a story that's kind

of nasty to tell because you want to feel important again. But what you're really doing is trying to cut someone else. We want to cut someone because we want to see if it affects them because if it affects them, we'll feel important again. The problem is when you cut someone, at that point, it becomes something that's hard to reverse. So those are the three things. Diffuse quickly. Resist the urge to pile on. And third, resist the urge to be cutting with your words and hurt the other person deal with the issue at hand now i'll finish on this it's not noble once you've hurt someone and made them cry and really hurt me really done them damage it's not noble at that point to go oh my god i feel bad now and then go and apologize and say i'm so sorry i didn't mean to do all that to you because at that point the damage is done my God, I feel bad now. And then go and apologize and say, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do all that to you. Because at that point, the damage is done.

Let me tell you what's really brave and noble. At the point where you're hurting, at the point where you're feeling stubborn, at the point where your pride is damaged, to try and go and diffuse it and deal with it right then. It's the hardest moment to do it. But if you can do it, you're the bravest person in the relationship. So that's it for today. Take care, my friends. Share this, please. It's so important to relationships. Relationships are killed every day or irreversibly damaged every day, which could otherwise be beautiful connections between people. So share this with the people that you care about so that they can do the same thing, Twitter or Facebook. And let us know what you think. Hashtag love life. I'll see you soon, guys. Okay, so what do men really think about a woman

who dates more than one guy at a time? I'm going to tell you and reveal the three female mindsets that drive men absolutely wild in a free video that I've created for you. You're going to get exclusive access to a Q&A session from a live seminar where I coach real women on how to deal with hot and cold men, how to find out if a guy is single, how to be strong and confident in a relationship, and much more. To get your free access to the three female mindsets that drive men absolutely wild, just go to lovelifepodcast.com forward slash mindsets.